Friends, family mourn two women killed in wreck

HILLSBOROUGH — The family and friends of two women who died in a head-on collision Saturday night near Hillsborough are mourning their deaths.

Dixie Shively, 40, of Durham, and Jurina Smith Vincent-Lee, 35, of Hillsborough, died in the two-car wreck Saturday about 10:30 p.m.

According to the N.C. Highway Patrol, Vincent-Lee was driving a 2007 Toyota Scion on Old N.C. 10 when she crossed the centerline and collided with a 1998 Ford Escort driven by Shively.

Shively was employed at University Station Market and lived a few minutes away from the store and the scene of the crash.

Vincent-Lee was employed at North Carolina Central University in the police department in human resources, working as a training liaison.

Shively was the mother of three children and also took care of her mother, according to Kathleen Goodfellow. They worked together at the market, a country store located on U.S. 70 at the intersection of University Station Road, about five miles east of Hillsborough.

“She was a wonderful mother,” Goodfellow said. “She did everything for her kids, and she did everything for her mother, and she was very good to us here at the store. We loved her.”

When the store opened, the owner asked Goodfellow to hire a good, honest employee to work at the store. Goodfellow had known Shively since 1991 and knew she fit those criteria, so she hired her.

“We’ve been here four years now,” she said. “She was my right hand. I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. I’ve cried so many days for her.”

Tara Mihaly, a friend of Shively’s who often stopped by the market to chat, said Shively was kind and considerate to everyone.

The market has a comfortable old time ambience, and people in the community often stopped by to sit and talk, Mihaly said.

“There’s an entire community that’s devastated,” she said.

The market, with the help of Bull City Radiator, will sell plates of food on Saturday to raise money for Shively’s family, Goodfellow said. They’ll fire up the grills outside early in the morning, and plates should be available for sale throughout the day, she said.

Vincent-Lee was a security officer at NCCU and previously worked in the parking unit, said Timothy Bellamy, chief of the NCCU Police Department.

“She was a dedicated employee of the NCCU Police Department,” he said. “She dedicated a lot of her time and resources to the job.”

Most recently, Vincent-Lee was on special assignment working with the intern program in training and records.

“She was full of energy and had innovative ideas,” Bellamy said.

Vincent-Lee began working in the department in 2010.

Bellamy added that Vincent-Lee had been a track and tennis star at St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh when she was a student there.

Bellamy offered no other information about Vincent-Lee, saying her family has requested privacy.